AS MANY BARBADIANS counted their losses after the passage of Tropical Storm Tomas last Saturday, Member of Parliament for St Joseph, Dale Marshall, called conditions in his constituency “nearing treacherous”.
When the DAILY NATION caught up with Marshall in Parks Road, St Joseph, he was meeting with Fern Collymore, whose roof had been partially blown away.
“Around 3:30 yesterday morning when the storm was passing, I heard a lot of noise and then the bedroom section which is at the back of the house caved in. I was in the bedroom with my daughter but before anything happened to us, we ran out quickly.
“This is devastating because I lost the majority of my stuff because I had to run over by my neighbour and I didn’t get to save much. I need some place to stay. I’m staying with my sister but it’s too cramped there,” explained Collymore.
Meanwhile, Marshall, noting that Tomas was worse than Hurricane Lili in 2002, said he was concerned with the landscape that Parks Road residents were living on.
“One of the problems with Parks Road is one of slippage, and this is a home which has been affected by slippage before. In a sense, it is fortunate that it was just the roof that blew off.
“The houses along this entire stretch of road are at double risk: the risk of slippage and roofs being blown off. There is nothing to block the wind coming out of the valley behind the road.
“It’s not just the case of solving the short-term problem of changing roofs, but urgent attention needs to be paid to relocating those houses on Parks Road that are at risk from slippage,” he said.
Over at the goat farm of farmer and NATION?columnist Richard Hoad, located in Morgan Lewis, Hoad suffered damage to his home and animal shed.
“We have heavy losses on the animal shed, the area where we milk. The animals are okay so far. We didn’t lose any but, as expected, they were scared.
“We also had losses to the house, we lost the gallery and two of the rooms. The room where we had the computer, books and everything was flooded out,” he said.
